


Couples' Night

by neveralarch



Category: The Transformers (IDW Generation One)
Genre: Fake/Pretend Relationship, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-23
Updated: 2020-07-23
Packaged: 2021-03-04 20:20:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,913
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25472275
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/neveralarch/pseuds/neveralarch
Summary: It was couples' night at Swerve's. Free drinks for any cute courting mechs who dared try to pass Swerve's test of true love! But no onehaddared... until now.
Relationships: Brainstorm/Whirl (Transformers)
Comments: 18
Kudos: 104





	Couples' Night

**Author's Note:**

  * For [AllieVRoboGirl](https://archiveofourown.org/users/AllieVRoboGirl/gifts).



> I did a fic giveaway on twitter and AllieV won! I didn't do _exactly_ the prompt, but hopefully this is close enough :) Thanks to Dez for editing and helping me catch the dreaded Brianstorm.
> 
> This fic contains kissing, swearing, and drinking. Set before any of the reveals about Brainstorm, although there are a few references.

It was couples' night at Swerve's.

Brainstorm respected the genius of couples' night. Theme nights attracted customers, and so did discounts. Couples' night, with its glittery spark casing decorations and its offer of free drinks for the romantically involved, hit all of the requirements. The one thing that was missing was couples. Swerve always scheduled couples’ night during one of Rewind's more... private movie nights, and no one else on the Lost Light had yet managed to show enough emotional vulnerability to actually maintain a relationship. Mechs still flocked to Swerve's on couples' night, laying bets on who the first couple would be, but Swerve never had to actually give anyone a free drink.

Brainstorm had tried to convince Perceptor that 'lab partners' was basically the same as 'couple,' but Perceptor had given him a _look_. So instead they were just sitting at a corner booth with a random assortment of crew members drinking drinks they'd all paid full price for, listening to Ultra Magnus wax on about the illuminating beauty of the Autobot code.

Brainstorm really wished Ultra Magnus hadn't decided that Swerve's needed 'supervision.'

"—And of course we cannot forget the use of punctuation in article forty-nine, subsection twelve, paragraph twenty-three," continued Ultra Magnus, gesturing with his energon spritzer. "Sublime! I'm sure you all recall the comma in the second sentence?"

"Yeah, for sure," said Brainstorm.

"Excellent!" Ultra Magnus actually patted Brainstorm's shoulder. Frag, was he _drunk_ off fizzy coolant? "Perhaps you would recite with me? 'If an Autobot is found to have, through inaction—'"

"Hey," said Tailgate, cutting through Brainstorm's half-sparked attempt to mumble along, "what made you mechs decide to be Autobots?"

Brainstorm forced himself not to flinch. Tailgate was just curious, it wasn't—He didn't have any reason to doubt Brainstorm's loyalties.

Tailgate was all tucked up against Cyclonus' side—the betting pool was pretty sure they'd be the first to get a discount drink, if anyone ever did. He looked expectantly around the table.

"I used to work for Sentinel Prime," volunteered Perceptor. "The Autobots seemed the safer option to avoid retribution, when it came time to change sides."

"I, ah, I was swept up in an evacuation," said Rung. "I didn't exactly have much choice of which ship I ended up on."

"Better than no choice at all," snorted Getaway.

"Am I the _only_ one who joined the Autobots because I believed in our ideals?" asked Ultra Magnus. "Surely some of you—Brainstorm? You know the code. Had you at least _read_ it before you joined?"

"Uhh," said Brainstorm, three drinks in and struggling to remember his own made-up backstory, "well. Well, I—"

"Babydoll, there you are!" Whirl skidded to a stop, reached over the table, and actually plucked Brainstorm out of his seat. "Come on, let's go get our freebies."

"Yeah!" said Brainstorm, grateful for the rescue. He got halfway across the room before he felt safe enough to ask: "What the pit are you talking about?"

"You and me," said Whirl, "are gonna get ourselves couples' drinks."

"Oh, we're definitely not," said Brainstorm. Swerve saw through every attempt to scam drinks—there was a reason Perceptor hadn't wanted to give it a shot, and it wasn't just honor or whatever. Pretending to be a couple just led to public mockery once Swerve exposed you. At least Perceptor and Brainstorm could've been believable. Lab mates becoming romantic as their optics met over the test tubes...

"We've got nothing in common," said Brainstorm.

"You like guns." Whirl waved a pincer at Brainstorm, then turned it on himself. "And I basically am a gun, so. Match made in the allspark. Come on, just follow my lead."

They ended up on the stools in front of the bar, which people always left clear on couples’ night in case a couple happened to wander by. Whirl rapped the table. "Service!"

Swerve sighed and tore himself away from where he'd been laughing at someone else's joke. "Another Blue Vosian for you, Brainstorm? And what are you drinking, Whirl?"

"Whatever you've got that's expensive," said Whirl. "After all, it's couples' night!"

Swerve's hands stopped in the act of pulling down a malachite blend. "Couples' night," he said.

"Yep!" Whirl looped an arm around Brainstorm's shoulder. "Me and my main squeeze here decided to finally make it public."

Swerve leaned forward over the bar, glaring holes at them through his visor. "Nah," he said at last. "Not buying it."

"You think a mech like me couldn't bag a smoking hottie like this?" demanded Whirl. "That's prejudice! Anti-empurata bias!"

"I've never even seen you _talk_ to each other," said Swerve. "No free drinks."

Whirl gave Brainstorm a little shake. "Hey," he whispered. "You're up, say something smart."

"Actually," said Brainstorm, "I discovered last week that Whirl and I have the exact same spark frequency! I just knew it was meant to be, it's scientifically-proven true love."

"Aww, snookums, I love when you talk like an egghead," said Whirl. "It makes me just wanna smash you up and turn you into a sexy little omelette. Swerve, give us the drinks."

"No," said Swerve.

"But it's couples' night!" Brainstorm was getting into it now, laying one hand to stroke over Whirl's cockpit. It felt weirdly good to have an accomplice, for once. "Don't be mean, Swerve."

"If you're fragging sparkmates, prove it," said Swerve. "Whirl, tell me what Brainstorm's thinking about."

"Weapons," said Whirl, immediately.

"No, I mean—" Swerve's engine growled in frustration. "Anyone could tell you that! You gotta prove you have a special bond that allows your psyches to communicate in a way that transcends space and time. Whirl, think of a number between one and a hundred."

"Got it," said Whirl, and then tapped Brainstorm three times on the shoulder.

"I saw that!" snapped Swerve. "Hands on the table."

"More anti-empurata prejudice!" said Whirl. "I don't have any hands!"

" _Pincers_ on the table." Swerve actually pinned them down with his own hands when Whirl acquiesced. "Okay. Think of a _new_ number, if you think of three again I'm throwing you out. Got it?"

"Got it," said Whirl.

"All right," said Swerve. "You can guess, Brainstorm."

"Sixty-nine," said Brainstorm.

"Yeah!" Whirl threw his pincers up in the air, easily lifting Swerve up when Swerve didn’t let go. "Dream team!"

"How do I know you're telling the truth?" sputtered Swerve, his feet kicking as he dangled in the air. "I should've had you write it down!"

"Okay, listen, I _was_ going to lie," said Whirl, "but I didn't have to! My honey bunches of oats right here nailed it! Give us the drinks."

"Fine," said Swerve. "Sure. Let me down, I'll mix 'em up for you."

Brainstorm held his vents as Whirl lowered Swerve down to the floor. It couldn't be that easy, could it?

"But first," said Swerve, when he was safely out of Whirl's arm-reach, "the happy couple oughtta kiss."

"Kiss?" said Whirl, blankly.

"Kiss," said Swerve, firmly. "Come on, everyone's watching."

Everyone _was_ watching, Brainstorm realized belatedly. There was a ring of mechs around them, leaning in with hungry optics. Tailgate was standing on a table to see over the crowd.

"Uhhhhhh," said Whirl, one long, drawn out sound, like he'd forgotten how to shut off his vocalizer. Brainstorm turned on his stool to face him. He put his hands on either side of Whirl's optic.

Brainstorm was _not_ going to lose those drinks.

The sound of their faces clacking together was loud in the silence. Brainstorm tried to aim for where he was pretty sure Whirl's intake was, but it ended up with him banging his mask against Whirl's neck, optic, and the top of his head. It wasn't like he was gonna take the mask off, no one here even knew that he _had_ a mouth.

The crowd was murmuring indistinctly, but the disappointment was pretty distinct. Brainstorm pulled back and sent a glare around the room.

"Frag off! Just because we don't have _lips_ or _tongues_ to titillate you doesn't mean we're not—"

Whirl dragged him back in.

With Whirl steering, Brainstorm found that his face plate fit right into the curve underneath Whirl's optic housing. Whirl set a little rubbing rhythm against the edge of Brainstorm's mask that literally sent sparks flying in front of Brainstorm's optics. It was so warm, oh Primus, Brainstorm hadn't been touched like this since—well, since _ever_. He gasped and tried to get closer, his aft on the edge of his stool and his knees bumping up against Whirl's thighs.

Whirl's pincer was actually stroking over Brainstorm's interface panel when Swerve lost patience.

"Fine!" Swerve yelled. "Fine, fine, take the drinks, take a whole _six-pack_ of engex, only get out of here if you're going to swap cables! This isn't that kind of bar!"

Brainstorm soon found himself out in the corridor, drink in one hand, six-pack in the other, Whirl half-draped over his back, that smooth clever pincer drifting down to stroke the glass of Brainstorm's cockpit.

"I want those cocktail glasses back tomorrow!" called Swerve.

"We did it," said Brainstorm, stunned.

"We did it," agreed Whirl, his voice fuzzed with static.

"I did it!" shrieked Tailgate, from inside the bar. "I won the pool! Cyclonus, I won! Now we can finally get our free drink!"

"I'm sorry, were you _gambling_?" said Ultra Magnus. "Tailgate, gambling is immoral and unprofitable—"

"I just won fifty thousand credits!" Tailgate whooped in excitement. "Gambling is the best!"

"Twenty-five percent of that is yours," said Whirl, sounding a little steadier. He backed off, taking his own weight. "We split it four ways—you, me, Tailgate, and Cyclonus. Tailgate and Cyclonus have been fucking for weeks, but no one was gonna make money on two to one odds. I convinced them to stay on the downlow and let a dark horse ride."

"Oh," said Brainstorm. It was weird—he felt cold now that Whirl wasn't touching him. He should feel normal. It was normal to be alone.

"Odds on us were astronomical," said Whirl. "Five thousand to one. I don’t know why, I think we’re a pretty good match. Maybe they just figured I couldn’t bag a hottie like you? Anyway, it made for a great scheme."

"Yeah," said Brainstorm. He had to remember what he was doing. He had a plan, he had a _mission_. He couldn't get involved, not when all of this was going to disappear once he was done. It didn't _matter_ that Whirl had never actually liked him.

"Yeah," agreed Whirl. "Anyway. You can keep the six-pack, I'll just, uhhhhhh, go? I guess? Unless you want to—Yeah, never mind, I'll go."

"You don't have to," said Brainstorm, quickly, before Whirl could even turn away. "You could. Come to my hab? And we could drink, and, uh, celebrate?"

Whirl looked at him for a long moment. His optic could be so inexpressive, when he wanted it to be—Brainstorm imagined boredom, disgust, awkwardness, but really Whirl just looked blank.

"I liked being a couple with you," said Brainstorm, when finally he couldn't take it anymore. "It'd be fun to pretend for a little longer."

"Yeah," said Whirl, so quiet that Brainstorm almost missed it. But then, louder: "Yeah! Yeah, let's do it, we're gonna fool _everybody_ , this is gonna be awesome. Wait, does celebrate mean cabling? Can I touch your wings? I'll be _real_ gentle, just the gentlest—"

Brainstorm could afford a night off from the mission. Just this once.

**Author's Note:**

> If you liked this fic, you can share it on [DW](https://neveralarch.dreamwidth.org/108638.html), [Tumblr](https://neveralarch.tumblr.com/post/624466467502669824/couples-night-neveralarch-the-transformers), or [Twitter](https://twitter.com/neveralarch/status/1286405514675593217). Or leave a comment :D


End file.
